EARLY STEEPLE-CHASma. 93 



training tlie horses, and of running according to weight, age 

 and distance, was now introduced. Pedigrees were kept, the 

 best and stoutest horses and mares being kept for breed, and 

 their progeny being for the most part set aside for racing pur- 

 poses. 



" The races of King James were in great part," says Mr. 

 Youatt, " matches against time, or trials of speed or bottom for 

 absurdly long and cruel distances." 



" There was, at first," he says elsewhere, " no course marked 

 out for the race, but the contest generally consisted in running 

 train-scent " — what is now known as a drag — " across the coun- 

 try, and sometimes the most difficult and dangerous part of the 

 country was selected for the exhibition. Occasionally our pre- 

 sent steeple-chase was adopted with all its dangers and more 

 than its present barbarity ; as persons were appointed cruelly 

 to flog along the exhausted and jaded horses." 



It is to be regretted that Mr. Youatt neither states the date 

 of these performances, nor indicates his authority. He mentions 

 them, however, previously, in point of place, to his mention of 

 King James's matches against time, wherefore I presume that 

 they took place previously, in regard of occurrence. The fact 

 is stated as if in relation to the races at Chester and Stamford, 

 in the reign of Elizabeth. 



Yet this seems hardly to consist with the mention of the 

 Roodee, which is and was a regular course. 



Her present Majesty»has never, nor has the prince consort, entered a race-horse 

 for any prize, but they are constant attendants at the racing meetings, and a small 

 but splendid royal stud of mares is now kept at Hampton Court, with success and 

 profit. 



Never, probably, has the turf been so popular in England, as it is now, since its 

 purification by the late Lord George Bentinck ; never was it so efficiently supported, 

 nor ever, I believe, despite all the silly outcries about deterioration of blood, decline 

 of size and physique, and decrease of soundness, stamina, and stanchness, has the 

 English or the American race-horse been equal, far less superior, to what it now is, 

 either in perfection of blood, stoutness of constitution, symmetry, beauty, size, 

 speed, or bottom. 



But I will not anticipate ; this portion of the subject will be considered in a dif- 

 ferent place ; and now, after a few general remarks on the now existing thorough 

 blood of the English horse, I shall pass to that of America, which is identical with 

 it, unless in so far as it may have been acted on by the influences of cUmate, or the 

 mode of handling and treatment. 



